The present invention relates to a product aligning device, particularly for supplying wrapping machines.
In particular, the present invention relates to an aligning device which may be employed to advantage in the food industry for receiving products in bulk, e.g. sweets, chocolates, etc., and feeding the same, in line and correctly oriented, on to a manufacturing machine, in particular, a wrapping machine.
Known aligning devices used in the food industry comprise a plate turning about its axis and designed to receive the product in bulk. The plate, usually consisting of a disc or, at times, a number of coaxial coplanar annular discs turning at outwardly increasing speeds, turns at such a speed that the centrifugal force acting on each product item, regardless of its position on the plate, never exceeds the frictional force between the item and the plate.
Once unloaded on to the plate in any given position, each item is fed by the plate along a circular route, along which it is directed by fixed obstacles on to circular routes of gradually increasing radius, until it eventually travels along a circular route extending about the periphery of the plate itself, from which it is then fed on to an output conveyor tangent to the plate.
By virtue of the friction between the product items and the surface of the plate and said fixed obstacles, the items are arranged with their longer axis parallel to the travelling direction, and are so aligned as to be fed, uniformly oriented and in single file, on to the output conveyor.
Though perfectly efficient, known aligning devices of the aforementioned type have proved unsuitable for connection to modern wrapping machines, which operate at such high speed as to require the use of two or more devices. This is due to the operating capacity of known aligning devices being limited by the maximum permitted rotation speed of the plate, in excess of which speed the items would be spun off the plate.